CPaaS innovator and Chat Commerce leader, Clickatell has secured $91 million in a Series C round of investment.

The investment round was led by Arrowroot Capital, with participation from Kennedy Lewis Investment Management, Endeavor Global and Harvest.

According to the startup, this funding will be used to accelerate its product for expansion in three key areas:

• Accelerated development and innovation of its Chat Commerce offering
• Expansion of its footprint in the U.S., and
• Scaling of sales and marketing efforts on the back of growing demand from leading brands.

Clickatell also disclosed that the funding will allow the company to significantly grow its engineering skills.

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“In 2019, Clickatell was the first to launch chat banking, bringing banking services functionality to chat channels. Our successes would not be possible without the trust and collaboration of our customers, some of Africa’s largest and most successful companies in the world,” said Pieter de Villiers, Co-Founder and CEO at Clickatell.

“We look forward to working with businesses and financial institutions across the continent to enable Chat Commerce, the future of digital commerce and engagement. Soon, every consumer in Africa will engage family and friends via chat plus connect, interact and transact with the brands they love through their favourite chat platform.”

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The startup has been recognised as a global leader in powering mobile messaging/ CPaaS (Communications Platform as a Service) and payments within a chat.

According to the startup, the company has processed more than 30 billion interactions, and 2 billion commerce transactions during the COVID-19 period alone - enabling customer-centric brands to connect, interact and transact with their customers wherever they were sheltering in place during the pandemic.

The company has strategically positioned to capitalise on the intersection between communications (CPaaS, CCaaS) and commerce (digital payments) – offering a complete end-to-end Chat Commerce Platform. Currently, the company serves more than 10,000 customers, many of which are Fortune 500 companies and leading global brands such as Coca-Cola, Deloitte, GT Bank, Booking.com, GoDaddy, IKEA, Novartis, Standard Bank, Tangerine, Telegram, US Foods, Visa, Zipcar, Capitec and others.